NGOs

Action Contre la Faim (also known as Action Against Hunger or ACF-International) is an international humanitarian organization focused on ending world hunger. In the summer of 2015, the Pardee Center and ACF-International became partner organizations, intent on using the IFs platform to better inform strategic planning and improve the human condition. The Pardee Center trained ACF-International staff in Paris on systems dynamics and global forecasting using International Futures in July 2015.  The tool is currently being used in four regional hubs to inform ACF country director offices.

In pursuing its mission of improving health in the developing world, Population Services International (PSI) is a leading promoter of family planning, oral rehydration therapy, malaria and HIV prevention, and safe water. It is a major provider of long-lasting insecticide treated bed nets and condoms. PSI devotes great attention to assessing the impact of its efforts, using metrics such as years of healthy life added. In advance of a possible movement of its programming into provision of improved cookstoves and hence reduction of indoor air pollution, a major killer globally, PSI and the Pardee Center are collaborating on an impact assessment of such stoves, an outgrowth of the work of the Center in health forecasting.

In October 2011 the Southern African Regional Universities Association (SARUA) organized a strategic conversation about the future of higher education in the region. The Pardee Center participated in this dialogue. Pardee personnel subsequently contributed a chapter also to a joint publication on Building Higher Education Scenarios 2025: A Strategic Agenda for Development and provided scenario analysis that was important to framing the larger effort.

With ever-advancing medical technology, the prospect of achieving greatly increased lifespans during this century is becoming a real possibility. Whether one sees this development as a near certainty or a true wildcard, the implications of such an achievement could be massive. Thus it behooves us to try to better understand the implications of population aging and life extension. The SENS project involves the enhancement of the IFs model to handle longer lifespans and the refining of the forward linkages from age and health to the rest of the integrated IFs system. The enhancements are part of the Pardee Center’s efforts to provide scenario and policy analysis for the SENS Foundation.

In the 1980s a global model called GLOBUS was developed and housed at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin fur Sozialforschung or WZB (Social Science Research Center Berlin). After learning about IFs, WZB invited Dr. Hughes to be a commuting member of the Berlin team. He brought IFs into the project as a foundational tool for the demographic and economic modules of GLOBUS.  

The Millennium Project regularly computes a State of the Future Index (SOFI) using historical data.  The Pardee Center partnered with the MP and Ted Gordon, the developer of the SOFI, to compute a forecast version of the index within IFs.  In order to make that available widely we partnered with Ted Gordon to publish an article on the work in Technological Forecasting and Social Change. The Millennium Project also published forecasts using the capability in is 2008, 2010, and 2011 State of the Future volumes.  The web site of the Millennium Project also points visitors to  the IFs system.

Water for People (WfP) is a Denver-based international NGO, whose purpose is to ensure that all people have sustainable access to safe water and sanitation. It currently operates in nine countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. The Pardee Center used IFs to help WfP tell the story of its mission by providing estimates of the health and economic benefits that these countries can expect by accelerating the transition to universal access to safe water and sanitation. This work grew out of our earlier work in health and infrastructure forecasting.